Oh Mythology, Where Art Thou? (#3)

Where to start, how to research, and how to craft a beautiful story that has many or few elements of mythology 😉…These are the questions I left you with last post, and the post before

So where does one start?

Honestly, I say start with with you know. For instance when I started writing BLOOD OF ISIS, I knew I wanted it to include Egyptian mythology.

Because I’m such a mythology buff I already knew a lot of things about Egyptian mythology such as the most common names of the gods and goddesses and which ones I wanted to be “bad and good” in my story. I also knew the title of the story pretty early on and with that came the realization that I needed to know more about these deities especially Isis. So I did what any writer must inevitably do, I began to research. And by researching I meant I went to my local library and checked out (almost) every book they had on Egyptian mythology.

I strongly suggest going to your local library and checking out books on subject you’re writing on.

Why? Because often there are several variations of the same myth so it’s important to get good sources. While some websites are reliable it’s harder to distinguish a good website from a good book. With books on myths make sure you go to the nonfiction section.

And if you prefer to research online double check your sources 🙂

After you have your sources it’s important to figure out how to stay true to the myth while also telling your own story.

For example with BLOOD OF ISIS my main character is the descendant of the Egyptian Goddess Isis. When crafting my story I decided to use the traditional Egyptian creation myth (that was me staying true to the myth) yet I also changed some details, using the discrepancies in the different variations of the myths and the gaps to tell my own story.

For instance I took a twist on the traditional Egyptian myths by having some of the gods have mortal children, something that is frequently talked about in Greek and Roman mythology but not so much in Egyptian. I also changed the ending of some other popular myths in Egyptian mythology.

So find your favorite myth or just one that interests you and let your imagination soar. The important thing to remember is that anything you write has to keep some of the original elements so that it’s familiar enough, and so that your readers believe that it actually could have happened while also being unique.

2 Comments

thanks for sharing your tips and thoughts. I too love writing about mythology and just wrote a short story based on Egyptian myth. I found it much harder than Greek myth because there were many variations and even what the gods stood for seemed to change over time. I felt like I was trying to hold water in my hand and it slipped through my fingers a lot.

I’d love to read your short story, where can I get it? I completely understand, it was such a struggle but it was totally worth it. Haha, exactly, writing a story based off Egyptian mythology is no joke.